Mar 8, 2012

The Next 40 Years: OPERATION MANONG AND ITS LEGACY OF SERVICE

By Aurelio Solver Agcaoili

The witnesses and long-time advocates of the work of Operation Manong. (L-R) Charlene Cuaresma, Adrienne Guerero, and Dr. Amefil Agbayani.

On March
25, Operation Manong will hold a big celebration at the Filipino Community
Center in Waipahu, Hawaii, to mark the fortiethanniversary of its founding.
At this gathering—dubbed a reunion—alumni of OM from all over
Hawaii, and some from other places, are expected to take part and renew their
commitment to the OM cause. The alumni of OM have been
afforded with a newer, smarter, sexier term: OMers.OMers, of
course, is Operation Manongers, that kind of a Philippine slang that can
enchantingly turn a word into something suggesting action and actor.
It is neat and nifty way of affirming what one is part of.
The UH Office of Multicultural Services, now the new name
of Operation Manong since 2000, has set the tone of the celebration in
its website: ‘Yes, it’s been that long. A lot of memories to share. A lot
of catching up. And just a good time to rekindle those days of working with
youths and the community to make a difference in people’s lives.’
The forty years of Operation Manong’s narrative of service is
history in the raw. It is also a spunkiness, of daring, of boldness.
That was in 1971, when about this time only a handful
of Filipino students were enrolled at the University of Hawaii.
This situation only slightly improved in the early
80s, according to Agnes Malate, currently the director of the UH Health
Careers Opportunity Program. Malate says that when she was in
college in those years, only about four percent of the entire student
population of the university was Filipino. It was not the
university’s fault. The circumstances did not allow many of the
college-bound Filipino students to go to college. There were
bigger issues—as they still are bigger issues today. The
preference of Filipino students to go straight to the workforce is a bundle
of contradictions. But somewhere, it was—and still is—necessary, even
demandedof them. Many Ilokano parents in the Philippines, for
instance, would invest on the education of their children even to the extent
of mortgaging farmlands and homes just to see their children finish a
career. To have a degree in the old country is not a
guarantee of a good life, but it opens a door of opportunity for those who
have the diploma to show to prospective employers. The
contradiction is more prominent is Hawaii, with college-bound students ending
up in the same menial jobs like those of their parents, many of them unable
to transition to what could be considered as mainstream Hawaiian life.
The history of Filipino migration in the Hawaii and the United
States mainland has always been like this: a history of shadows, a history of
namelessness, and a history of the backdoor. Filipinos did not
have to be in the public space. From 1906 onwards, they have moved
around in the narrow confines of plantation work. After more
than a hundred years, there is no turning back the hand of time.
It is the same story of shadows. There is comfort in
not challenging the status quo, in sustaining it, in making Filipinos believe
that their private and public lives are not for the front door, not for the
display window. The activism of the late 60s and early 70s in
the Philippines—an activism that is connected in some way to the
counterculture of the United States in those times, a counterculture that
resisted the Viet Nam war and followed a path to nonconformity—spawned an
idea beyond the claims of greatness as promised by then President Ferdinand
Marcos. Life in the Philippines was simply one defined by tragedy
as a result of a culture of corruption, a self-serving system of
public governance, and a continuing neglect of the poor by the very political
leaders who ought to provide the underserved and the disadvantaged access to
the resources of the nation. When many of the East-West
scholars came to Hawaii, they saw the same plot of lack of systematic and
institutionalized deprivation, the marginalization of immigrants, and the
commoditization of their labor. The new immigrant needed to know
the ropes—but there were not enough means and methods made available to them.
The new immigrant needed to navigate the dizzying processes and
procedures towards the normalization of their life as potential citizens
of the new land. There were not enough people and support
groups to show them how to get by. OM’s mission says it well in
response to these conditions in those times, conditions that remain until
today: “(It) conducts student service programs and activities which ensure
equal access and opportunity to higher education for ethnic groups and
communities underrepresented in higher education.” With the
molting of the OM to OMSS, the goal is not to ddress the needs of Filipinos
alone but “to promote cultural diversity and tolerance in the wider
community” though the inclusion of all the underrepresented groups, including
the indigenous Hawaiian students. OM, now as OMSS, has continued
to be sensitive to the needs of the underrepresented groups, and today, its
mission includes the provision of “access to
educational opportunities to the disadvantaged students.”
Julius Soria, an instructor of the UH Ilokano
Language, Literature, and Culture Program and a doctor’s degree holder in
education, also at the university, speaks fondly of his days as a beneficiary
of the programs of OM. Coming to Hawaii at 15, and completing
his high school here, he moved to Leeward Community College and there took
his liberal arts. When he moved to UH Manoa, OM helped transition to a
broader academic environment. At the time when he needed all the
help he could get to complete his college degree, OM helped him obtain a
tuition waiver for two semesters. This was in 1994. Soria also
saw how OM employed many of the Ilokano students enrolled in the UH Ilokano
courses, a realization that came to him only much later in his college years,
not knowing that his own Ilokano language, an absent discourse in his
homeland, is given due recognition at his own university as one of the world
languages programs. “I think that across the years, OM has been
able to live up to its own vision and mission,” Soria said in an interview.
“All through the years—and I am a witness to what OM has done—it has lived up
to its aim, to what it wants done for and in the name of immigrants, to
college-bound students, to students needing assistance to transition to
college and to a university culture of learning and studies.”
Malate, herself now an advocate of student rights
and opportunities to go the careers in health and health care, speaks of OM
as she found it, first as a secretary-general of a Fil-Am organization in
1982. While she is not herself a product of the OM programs but
as “a friend of OM” as she puts it, she saw how OM collaborated with other
groups in the university in those days, including her organization, the joint
language and culture club of the Ilokano and Tagalog programs of the
university, and many others that advanced the cause of heritage rights,
student development, leadership, career opportunities, and intensive programs
in student teaching and youth development. “I felt at home when
I was with OM,” Malate explains. “We felt we had a home to go to. There was
something in the welcoming environment that OM provided for us especially
during those years that we were searching for what we were, what we could do,
what we could offer to our communities.” Through the
years, OM has been involved in the recruitment and retention of students, in
holding students conferences, in providing a wide range of exposures to high
school to university life, in educating the community and parents of the need
to push students to finish their schooling, and equipping students with the
skills to give back to their communities. OMSS remains as
one of the many programs under the office of Student Equity, Excellence, and
Diversity directed by Dr. Amy Agbayani.OMSS is run by Clement
Bautista as its director. Adrienne Guerero and Tina
Tauasosi-Posiulai, both program coordinators, assist Bautista in running the
day-to-day affairs of the program. In the next 40 years
or so, OMSS, the former OM, shall have delivered most of the goods to the
underrepresented groups of students. By that time, they shall have
produced more and more generations of leaders who will make sense because
they are steeped in addressing the needs of their communities, the needs of
their own people, and the needs of students needing guidance, assistance, and
nurturing.

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New Hours for County Immigrant Services

WAILUKU – Effective April 1st, the County of Maui Immigrant Services Division announced its new office hours.
In addition, the division will be re-opening its Lahaina office starting this month.
The new hours for the following offices are:
Wailuku
Monday-Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Friday 8:00 a.m. to Noon
Molokai
Monday-Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Lanai
Monday and Wednesday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Friday 8:00 am-12:00 noon
Lahaina
First Thursday of every month from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
For more information call 270-7791.